Modern technology has provided consumers with a wide variety of electronic devices with which to capture digital content, such as but not limited to content captured in video, audio, photo, text or other format. This phenomenon coupled with advances in networked communication, such as communication via the Internet, has resulted in greater content sharing among individuals. Several existing computer-based applications or related systems provide features for assisting a content producer with the distribution of digital content.
There are systems in place today that can distribute content to a known set of users. Also, some peer-to-peer (P2P) systems exist that can distribute content to anyone and everyone. However, such known systems do not account for potential scenarios where a content producer desires a limited, controlled distribution to a dynamic, unstructured social network. For example, a teenager creates a home video for fun. He wants some of his friends to see it, but not the entire world. Another scenario may involve a movie producer who wants to distribute a movie preview to a select number of reviewers and their associates, but not to everyone. Yet another example is where a family takes some video of a child's birthday party. The family would like for extended family and close friends to see it, but not have it available to the general public.
The scenarios mentioned above involve situations where a “limited viral distribution” is desired. The content producer does not want to identify exactly who is extended family or what constitutes “close friend”. Ideally, the content producer wants the content to spread virally to some “degree of separation”. “Degree of separation” used here refers to how far away (levels) one user is away from the originating user in a “friend of a friend” (FOAF) or other type of social network. In these examples the user wants to seed the content to a select group of people and allow them to have the freedom to spread the content further—at their discretion, and to users of their choice. However, the viral spread needs to be controlled, so as not to permit the content going to the general public. Additionally, the content producer may want to provide a different quality or portion of the content for users as they are farther “out” on the social network. In order to implement technology that provides a content producer with an ability to virally distribute digital content to their social network while providing controls on distribution and access, unique mechanisms for digital rights and license management are needed. An exemplary content distribution system and method with features for implementing digital rights management and license distribution is disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/516,231, entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR RIGHTS PROPAGATION AND LICENSE MANAGEMENT IN CONJUNCTION WITH DISTRIBUTION OF DIGITAL CONTENT IN A SOCIAL NETWORK”, filed on Sep. 6, 2006, currently pending, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety for all purposes. Such reference configures and manages controlled content distribution based on a number of levels, or “degrees of separation” among a content producer and one or more content recipients, and further accommodates license creation based on predefined level-rights selected by the content producer.
In accordance with the above exemplary rights propagation and license management technology, a license server is primarily responsible for issuing licenses, while a peer-to-peer (P2P) network generally handles content propagation. This configuration effectively prevents peers from modifying content before sending the content downstream to another peer. This means that the digital content selected for controlled distribution must be copied in its entirety and sent through the network, but only the relevant portions will be used as specified in given level-rights for the content. A system and method that addresses such inefficiencies is needed. Although various hybrid P2P models, proxies and reverse proxies exist, no solution that addresses all the features and aspects of the present subject matter has been developed.